Decay

How shall postwar foreign routes be divided among U.S. airlines? If Great Britain, and other nations, put their shoulders and purses behind one or two world-straddling airlines, shall the U.S. fight that monopoly with a monopoly of its own? These are the questions ever pressing the Civil Aeronautics Board.

Handsome, hard-working CAB Chairman Lloyd Welch Pogue took a run over these questions last week, then dropped bombs all over air monopoly. Cried Pogue, at a Denver air meeting: "Let us suppose that all of the air transportation of the U.S. had been developed by one company only. Logically, it can be proven in almost any field that monopoly could have been cheaper, that it could have avoided duplication of facilities, could have afforded the investor greater security by taking fewer risks, and could have established stability as its cardinal virtue.

"But all these soft, comfortable, protective principles, inducing decay, could not have been consistent with our great American pioneering tradition. Strength comes from practice and struggle, not from comfort and protection. Would a monopoly have been as bold in the development of equipment. . . ? What incentive would there have been for it to get up early and work late to develop its business? In the scales of American business, reasonable competition is good, it has made us strong and we want to keep it. We must continue to depend upon the strong yeast of competition to keep us growing."

Two weeks ago, 16 of the 19 U.S. airlines demanded wide open competition in postwar international airlines (TIME, July 26), started spade work to prevent Pan American Airways from regaining the peacetime monopoly it once had.

Chairman Pogue seemed to be thinking of this when he let fly. What would Pan American, exponent of air monopoly, answer?

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